


The One That Got Away

by quidditchchick



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 19:53:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2400887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quidditchchick/pseuds/quidditchchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rei was seven, he met a beautiful little girl and got a huge crush on her, but he never saw her again. Nearly ten years later and Rei never forgot her, but now he has a new crush: Nagisa. While visiting Nagisa's house one afternoon, Rei was looking through a photo album and came across a particular photo that gave him quite the surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One That Got Away

“Thank you for the ice cream, Onii-chan!” Rei beamed as he enjoyed the frozen treat.

“Anything for my lil bro.” He smiled and ruffled Rei’s hair. “You deserve it after getting the highest score on that super hard math quiz.”

“But it wasn’t hard at all, Onii-chan! I don’t know why the majority of the class did so poorly, to be honest. Sensei showed us the proper and easy procedure to figure out our times tables, and even if you somehow forgot that, you could just memorize them. I ended up doing both just to be safe.”

“Rei!” His brother laughed. “You are seriously the only seven-year-old I know that spouts out this kind of stuff. You sound like an adult sometimes.”

Rei pushed up his glasses. “S-speaking in such a childish way is not beautiful, Onii-chan.”

“Haha, there you go again.” He clapped his little brother on the back, a little too hard because it caused Rei to lunge forward and drop his ice cream on the ground. “Ahh, sorry, Rei! I’ll go get you another one!” He ran off to the vendor without a second thought.

“Tch, good job leaving your little brother to fend for himself.” Rei said under his breath before chuckling softly and deciding to walk toward the vendor as well.

Suddenly, a giant force slammed up against him and knocked him over onto the ground with a thump. He hit his head against the sidewalk, it wasn’t hard enough to do any real damage, but it still hurt. Rei, eyes closed from the impact, rubbed the bump forming on the back of his head and then tried to shift underneath the weight that was on top of him.

“S-s-sorrrrrry!” A small voice cried out, which caused Rei to open up his eyes. The new sight he was greeted with was one of the most beautiful things he has ever seen; a cute little girl about his age with bright magenta eyes and short, curly blonde hair that was tied up into pigtails with ribbons that matched her frilly pink dress.

“It’s-it’s okay.” Rei managed to stammer out. The little girl hopped up quickly and held out a hand to help Rei stand.

“S-sorry, really. I didn’t see you, I’m just in a hurry because I’m—”

“ _There_ you are!” Came a voice.

“Eeeep!” The girl jumped at the voice and scrambled to hide behind Rei. An older girl, around Rei’s brother’s age, came into view. She was also dressed very cutely in a frilly dress.

She rolled her eyes. “Come now, I can still see you, you know.”  

“G-go away, Onee-sama! I-I don’t like this dress!” The little girl cried into Rei’s ear. Rei couldn’t understand why she was so upset, the dress she had on was very beautiful. “I don’t wanna play this game anymore. I just wanna go home!”

The older girl sighed. “You’re no fun anymore. Fine, we’ll take you home.”

“R-really, Onee-sama?” She sniffed.

“Yeah , yeah. Now stop crying and stop bothering this little boy here.”

“O-okay.” She sniffed again. “S-sorry for being a bother. And sorry for running into you and knocking you over!”

“N-no, it was no problem really! I’m glad I could break your fall!”

“Thank you!” She smiled brightly at Rei and his face flushed to a shade not far off from the color of the girl’s eyes. Her sister, he presumed, took her hand and led her away. She looked back and smiled again at Rei, waving goodbye. Rei suddenly felt sick to his stomach. Wait, not really _sick_ , per say, but something similar, but it didn’t feel like anything negative.

“Ohoho, so who was _that_ , Rei?”

“Huh?!” Rei jumped at the sound of his brother’s voice. “H-how long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to notice that _you’ve got a cru-ush_!”

“I…I do not!”

“That’s not what the blush on your face is saying.” Rei pouted and crossed his arms. “She sure was a cutie, though, wasn’t she?”

Her image popped into Rei’s head again. She really _was_ beautiful. “She-she was…” Rei smiled to himself, but then shook his head. “Th-that doesn’t mean I have a crush! I’m just being appreciative of her beauty is all! I’m far too young for that sort of thing anyway!”

“Ha! This coming from the little man who thinks talking like a normal kid is childish.”

“Sh-shut up!” Rei adjusted his glasses, trying to hide his blush.

“Here, take your ice cream before it melts.”

Rei looked up reluctantly at his brother’s smiling face and took the treat. “Thanks for buying me another one…”

“Of course! I’m glad I had to so you could run into that cutie. What was her name, anyway?”

Rei suddenly realized and frowned. “I…I never got it.”

“Aww, that’s too bad. Maybe you’ll run into her again someday.”

“That’s highly doubtful; the probabilities of that happening are slim-to-none. And not knowing each other’s names, it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to find each other anyways. That is, if we wanted to go looking for each other.”

His brother laughed. “There you go, talking like an adult again. Where do you even learn this vocabulary?”

“I read a lot.”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, but you should try being a _kid_ sometimes, Rei. It’s fun!”

When Rei arrived home that day, he found that he couldn’t stop thinking about the girl. He felt weird when he thought about her, he felt…floaty, nauseous…like he could to throw up but like he could fly at the same time (which definitely would not be a very good combination). Maybe his brother was right; maybe he _did_ have a crush.

His brother liked to tease him and brought her up at the dinner table a few times, causing Rei to sink lower in his chair and feel the need to slam his face into his food, but that wouldn’t be sightly at all. His brother was completely convinced that it was fate they met and he was sure they’d meet again someday, so he should never let himself forget her.  

 

* * *

 

Nearly ten years later and Rei never _did_ forget her, but he never found out who she was so he never saw her again. He secretly liked to refer to her as “the one that got away”, though it seemed silly since he only met her once when he was a child and he didn’t know anything about her. He thought of her from time to time and wondered what it’d be like if they had met as adults; but the chances of their personalities fitting together were small, there were only so many people Rei could tolerate.

“Hey, Rei-chaaan!”

And _that_ was the voice of someone he sometimes could not understand just _how_ he was able to tolerate.

“You’re still coming over to my house today, right?!” Nagisa rocked back and forth on his heels and beamed up at him with that heart-warming smile that Rei found difficult to resist.

Oh, right. _That’s_  how.

Nagisa is Rei’s second crush, and he has been for quite a while; ever since he told him how beautiful his pole-vaulting was. No one had ever told Rei something like that before and for a while he had thought Nagisa only said it to get him to join the swim team. But after getting to know Nagisa in the past few months, he knew what Nagisa said was completely genuine, and so were Rei’s feelings for him.

Rei was currently planning the perfect confession of his feelings for the blond, and everything had to be perfect. A romantic atmosphere, maybe in the dim-lighting of his room after watching one of Nagisa’s favorite movies, and his well-thought out speech spoken masterfully as he gazed into those wondrous magenta eyes. And if Rei’s inkling was correct, Nagisa would return his feelings and accept his confession. If not, well, Rei didn’t like to think about that. He had prepared himself for such, as one should, but he had full confidence.

“Of course, Nagisa-kun. I’ve reminded you countless times, today.”

“Hehe, just making sure you don’t suddenly change your mind and run off!”

“Why would I change my mind?”

“Oh, no reason!” Nagisa sang and hopped onto the train; Rei followed, feeling slightly suspicious of Nagisa’s words.

Once off the train, Nagisa was surprisingly quiet on their walk to his home, but he still managed to break through the silence with a bit of humming. Rei stole a few glances when Nagisa’s gaze was pointed in the opposite direction, but he was eventually caught and looked away frantically.

“Was Rei-chan staring at me?” Nagisa giggled as he wrapped his arm around Rei’s and nudged him playfully.

“I thought saw a bug in your hair, is all.” Rei lied, pushing up his glasses with his free hand. Nagisa always made it harder for Rei to keep his feelings hidden until he was fully prepared for a proper confession, especially when he did little things like this. These situations always made Rei just want to blurt out everything out of nowhere, but that wouldn’t be beautiful and all of his planning will have been for nothing. Nagisa giggled again and tugged on Rei’s arm, hinting for him to hurry, and they arrived in record time.

“I’m home!” Nagisa yelled into the house as he slid off his shoes. “And I brought Rei-chan with me!”

“Sorry to intrude!” Rei called, also slipping off his shoes. The house was silent and there was no response.

“Oh, well, looks like we’re the only ones here, Rei-chan!” Nagisa said, failing at his attempt to sound surprised.

Rei’s suspicions from before finally clicked. “You-you _knew_ no one would be here, didn’t you, Nagisa-kun?!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Nagisa said innocently as he skipped to the kitchen. “You go on ahead to my room. Would you like anything to drink?”

Rei sighed and smiled. “Sure. Anything will be fine.” He headed up the steps to Nagisa’s room and laughed quietly to himself. He knew Nagisa well enough that this sort of odd behavior shouldn’t surprise him, but it still did somehow.

Rei opened the door to Nagisa’s room and set his bag near the boy’s desk. His room was actually surprisingly tidy today, Rei noticed, and gave a nod of approval. If only Nagisa could keep his room like this _all_ of the time. Rei had just settled on the floor in front of Nagisa’s bed once Nagisa walked inside and shut the door with his hip.

“I made us some warm milk with honey.” He said as he sat down next to Rei and handed him a mug. “I hope I didn’t make yours too sweet.”

Rei sipped at the mug cautiously. “It’s perfect. Thank you, Nagisa-kun.” Nagisa smiled and sipped at his own cup before moving a little bit closer and casually nuzzling his head against Rei’s shoulder.

There he went again, with these little touchy-feely gestures that drove Rei wild. He really needed to hurry up and set a date for that confession already. “So, what would you like to do? Watch a movie, or do you need help with any homework?”

“Oh, um…actually, Rei-chan…” Nagisa lifted his head from Rei’s shoulder and glanced at him before suddenly blushing and looking away. “I um, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Sure. What is it, Nagisa-kun?”

“Well…um…” Nagisa bit his lower lip and gripped his mug tightly. Rei was a little put-off by it because Nagisa was rarely one to be nervous or flustered. “I _did_ know that we’d be alone in the house and that’s why I asked you over today…because I…I wanted to do this in a place where we wouldn’t be interrupted…by my sisters, mostly.”

Rei tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry, so he went hastily gulped at his milk. “O-okay. G-go on…” He managed to get out between sips.

“I um…” Nagisa took a deep breath and finally looked up at Rei, the blush on his face pinker than his eyes. “I really really like you, Rei-chan. I mean…I really _really_ like you.”

Rei nearly choked on his milk and coughed before composing himself again. Had Nagisa just confessed?! Before he even got the chance?! “You…like me?”

“Y-yes.” Nagisa looked to the ground again and Rei thought his nervousness was one of the cutest things in the world. He always thought that if Nagisa were to confess, he’d be completely confident in himself or would be straight-forward and blunt, causing _Rei_ to be the flustered one. “You-you like me too, right? Or…am I just arrogant to think that?”

Rei smiled and took the mug from Nagisa’s hands to set them both onto the desk before moving in closer. “Of course I like you.” The smile that spread on Nagisa’s face was brighter than any Rei had ever seen. “Though, you kind of ruined everything.”

Nagisa’s smiled faded and he looked hurt and confused. “Eh?!”

“I had this entire confession planned and it was supposed to be romantic with dim-lighting and everything! But…you beat me to it.” Rei let out a soft breath of laughter.

“Well, you just took too long!”

“Sorry about that.” He reached over and took Nagisa’s hands in his. “So, would you...like to be my boyfriend, Nagisa-kun?”

Nagisa looked surprised at Rei’s question, having not expected it at all; he gave Rei’s hands a gentle squeeze. “Yes!”

Rei was unable to keep himself from smiling; not that he would if he could anyways. His eyes started to lid as he felt himself drawing closer to Nagisa’s warmth, nearly brushing their lips together.

“NAGISA!” The two boys suddenly jerked away from the each other at the sound of the monstrous voice that bellowed through the house. There was a faint stomping that drew closer and closer until there was a loud pounding on the door. “Nagisa, you open this door right now!”

“One of your sisters?” Rei groaned and Nagisa nodded, looking extremely irritated at the sudden interruption. “I thought we were supposed to be alone.”

“We _were_!” Nagisa turned toward the door. “What are you doing home?! I thought you were supposed to be on that date!”

“Oh _you_ know damn well why I’m not on my date right now!”

Rei shot Nagisa a look and Nagisa shrugged; he was just as confused as Rei was.

“Um, I actually don’t, Onee-chan…”

“Oh yes you do!” She suddenly burst through the door and the slam was so forceful, it caused a few books and such to fall off of Nagisa’s desk and knock one of the mugs over.

“Onee-chan! You’ve made a mess of my room!”

“Oh shut up, it’s not like your room isn’t always twice as bad! And what you did to me was ten times worse anyway! I _know_ it was you who sabotaged my make-up case! It’s all your fault that my favorite blouse was ruined when my eyeliner practically exploded when I—” She stopped suddenly and glanced over Nagisa’s shoulder. “Oh. Well, _hello_ , Rei-kun. Good to see you.” She said flirtatiously as he fiddled with her hair. “Why does a guy like you always have to hang out with my evil little brother anyway? Especially when you can hang out with _me._ ” She winked and Rei suddenly felt really uncomfortable.

Nagisa huffed. “I didn’t ruin your stupid blouse, okay?! Now get out of my room!” He shoved his sister out and locked the door behind her. “Sorry about that, Rei-chan.”

“It’s fine, really. But look, you actually tidied up and she made a big mess of it. I’ll help you clean up.” Nagisa nodded and took a towel from his closet to clean up the spill while Rei gathered the fallen books on the floor; one seemed to be a photo album that had opened a few pages once it hit the floor. Rei flipped through it quickly to see if any pages were wet from the milk. He wasn’t really paying much attention to the photos, but his eyes stopped on a particular page when something familiar caught his eye.

Right there in front of Rei’s face was a photo of a little blonde girl in pig-tails with ribbons, and a matching frilly dress. Rei’s heart nearly stopped at the sight; it…it was _her._ “N-Nagisa. Who…is this?”

“Hmm?” Nagisa stood up and glanced at the page Rei was looking at. “Oh, _that_? That’s, um…that’s me.” He said sounding faintly embarrassed.

“W-wha- _you_?!” No. No way in a million years that could be? The chances were too…and Nagisa was a _boy_.

“I told you how mean my sisters are. How they would take my bathing suit and replace it with a girly one for swim club.” Rei nodded, remembering the story of how he first met Haruka-senpai. “Well, they liked to dress me up in girly clothes and parade me around town, pretending I was their little sister. It was all fun at first when I was too young to really care, but it stopped being fun after a while and it was really embarrassing.” Nagisa laughed shyly. “I don’t even know why there are photos of that in there. I’ll have to get my sisters back later.”

Rei stared down at the photo and back up to Nagisa. He seriously could not understand how he never saw it before. The same blond curls…the same _eye color_ even; how did he never notice? After all the years of never forgetting his first crush and the months he spent becoming so close to Nagisa, he never once made the comparison.

But, now that he thought of it, why would he have? He never looked at Nagisa as someone he’d once met and longed to meet again. He looked at Nagisa as Nagisa; sweet, annoying, hyper, beautiful Nagisa. His feelings for him were for him alone and not for a little girl he met for a brief moment in the past.

Although, he must admit, he felt relieved to get a bit of closure; even _if_ the one that got away ended up being right in front of him the entire time. Rei felt his heart flutter at the thought of how unlikely the chances of something like this were to happen. His brother was right, it must have been _fate._

“Rei-chan?” Nagisa’s voice brought Rei back to reality. “Something wrong?”

“No.” Rei smiled and brought a hand to caress Nagisa’s cheek. “Nothing.”

Nagisa smiled and leaned his cheek into Rei’s hand, brought his own up, and softly brushed it against Rei’s. Rei then took the opportunity to brush his thumb over Nagisa’s lips before leaning in and finally kissing the boy. Nagisa returned the kiss eagerly and wrapped his arms around Rei’s neck so hastily, that Rei lost his balance and they both came crashing onto the floor.

They may have laughed for a quick moment, but they reconnected their lips and remained sprawled out on the floor until another one of Nagisa’s sisters came to collect them for dinner. They sat next to each other and kept their pinkies linked under the table throughout the entire dinner. Oh, was Rei’s brother going to have a field day when he told him about this later.


End file.
